"Billiard ball A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient and resilience are important to accuracy. Early balls were made of various materials, including wood and clay (the latter remaining in use well into the 20th century). Although affordable ox-bone balls were in common use in Europe, elephant ivory was favored since at least 1627 until the early 20th century; the earliest"
"of the Parkesine Works in Hackney, London. In the 1860s, an American, John Wesley Hyatt, acquired Parkes's patent and began experimenting with cellulose nitrate with the intention of manufacturing billiard balls, which until that time were made from ivory. He used cloth, ivory dust, and shellac, and on April 6, 1869, patented a method of covering billiard balls with the addition of collodion. With assistance from Peter Kinnear and other investors, Hyatt formed the Albany Billiard Ball Company (1868–1986) in Albany, New York, to manufacture the product. In 1870, John and his brother Isaiah patented a process of making a"
"owner of a billiard saloon in Colorado wrote to Hyatt about the explosive tendencies, saying that he did not mind very much personally but for the fact that every man in his saloon immediately pulled a gun at the sound. The process used by Hyatt to manufacture the billiard balls, patented in 1881, involved placing the mass of nitrocellulose in a rubber bag, which was then placed in a cylinder of liquid and heated. Pressure was applied to the liquid in the cylinder, which resulted in a uniform compression on the nitrocellulose mass, compressing it into a uniform sphere as"
"consist of a completely white cue ball, a second cue ball with typically a red or black dot on it (to aid in differentiation between the two cue balls), and a third, red ball. In some sets of balls, however, the second cue ball is solid yellow. Both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play. Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including celluloid, Bakelite, crystalate, and phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic) and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th"
"Crystalate Crystalate is an early plastic, a formulation of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol invented in the late 19th century and patented by American inventor George Henry Burt. It is best known as a material for gramophone records produced in the UK by Crystalate Manufacturing Company (although Burt's own US-based Globe Record Company also manufactured Crystalate records), and for moulded billiards, pool and snooker balls, as produced by the Endolithic Company (UK, later the Composition Billiard Ball Company). Crystalate was based on Bonzoline, a plastic produced by John Wesley Hyatt's US-based Albany Billiard Ball Company. Birt, a former Albany employee, began"
"specific example comes in the form of a piano key made from injection moulded styrene acrylonitrile (SAN). The key has a hook end which connects it to a metal spring, which causes the key to spring back into position after being struck. During assembly of the piano an adhesive was used, and excess adhesive which had spilled onto areas where it was not required was removed using a ketone solvent. Some vapour from this solvent condensed on the internal surface of the piano keys. Some time after this cleaning, fracture occurred at the junction where the hook end meets the"
"manufacturing what was essentially Bonzoline in the UK in 1900 as crystalate with Percy Warnford-Davis, under the Endolithic name. While Crystalate as a plastic material is obsolete and no longer manufactured, like Celluloid and Bakelite it is commonly encountered by collectors of vintage and antique goods, because many products were made using the substance. The plastic was even mandated in the UK for making billiard balls by the Billiards Association and Control Council in 1926. Super Crystalate is a brand name for a composition material, a cast rather than moulded resin, first produced by Composition Billiard Ball in 1972 as"
"century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid billiard balls, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material was volatile and highly inflammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture. Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from the typical pool cue with which many people are more familiar. Such"
"no evidence suggesting he did in fact win it. By 1870 it was commercially branded Celluloid, the first industrial plastic. However, the nature of celluloid made it volatile in production, occasionally exploding, which ultimately made this early plastic impractical. Subsequently, to avoid the problem of celluloid instability, the industry experimented with various other synthetic materials for billiard balls such as Bakelite, Crystallite and other plastic compounds. The exacting requirements of the billiard ball are met today with balls cast from plastic materials that are strongly resistant to cracking and chipping. Currently Saluc, under the brand names Aramith and Brunswick Centennial,"
"a replacement for Crystalate. Super Crystalate is no longer manufactured but it continues as a trade name on the Aramith Super Crystalate snooker ball sets that are made from phenolic resin. Crystalate Crystalate is an early plastic, a formulation of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol invented in the late 19th century and patented by American inventor George Henry Burt. It is best known as a material for gramophone records produced in the UK by Crystalate Manufacturing Company (although Burt's own US-based Globe Record Company also manufactured Crystalate records), and for moulded billiards, pool and snooker balls, as produced by the Endolithic"
"made of compressed talc. (Tip chalk is not used for this purpose because it is abrasive, hand-staining and difficult to apply.) Many players prefer a slick pool glove over hand chalk or talc because of the messiness of these powders; buildup of particles on the cloth will affect ball behavior and necessitate more-frequent cloth cleaning. Cue tip chalk (invented in its modern form by straight rail billiard pro William A. Spinks and chemist William Hoskins in 1897) is made by crushing silica and the abrasive substance corundum or aloxite (aluminium oxide), into a powder. It is combined with dye (originally"
"was made from cellulose, one of the most abundant raw materials in the world, and nitrocellulose combined with camphor under heat and pressure produced celluloid. Though originally meant as a replacement for ivory billiard balls, celluloid began being used for many things for its flexibility, durability, and relative inexpensiveness, making it a natural candidate as a material for guitar picks. Later, other materials, such as nylon and less popularly wood, glass, or metal would become popular for making guitar picks for their increased grip, flexibility, or tonal qualities. Pick shapes started with guitarists shaping bone, shell, wood, cuttlebone, metal, amber,"
"Piano wire Piano wire, or ""music wire"", is a specialized type of wire made to become springs or (as the name implies) to be used as piano strings. It is made from tempered high-carbon steel, also known as spring steel, which replaced iron as the material starting in 1834. Piano wire has a very high tensile strength to cope with the heavy demands placed upon piano strings; accordingly, piano wire is also used for a number of other purposes, including springs, surgical uses, and in special effects. The oldest record of wire being made for musical instruments is from Augsburg"
"dolls, picture frames, charms, hat pins, buttons, buckles, stringed instrument parts, accordions, fountain pens, cutlery handles and kitchen items. The main disadvantage the material had was that it was flammable. Items made in celluloid are collectible today and increasingly rare in good condition. It was soon overtaken by Bakelite and Catalin. Table tennis balls are still made from celluloid. ""Parker Brothers...made some versions out of hollow Celluloid--which, because of its 'frictionless' properties, spun even faster than steel."" Shelf clocks and other furniture items were often covered with celluloid in a manner similar to veneer. This celluloid was printed to look"
"early 20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material was volatile, sometimes exploding during manufacture and was highly flammable. There are many sizes and styles of pool and billiard tables. Generally, tables are rectangles twice as long as they are"
"such as piano felt. Several traditional players have used hammers that differ substantially from those in common use today. Paul Van Arsdale (b. 1920), a player from upstate New York, uses flexible hammers made from hacksaw blades, with leather-covered wooden blocks attached to the ends (these are modeled after the hammers used by his grandfather, Jesse Martin). The Irish player John Rea (1915–1983) used hammers made of thick steel wire, wound with wool. He made these himself from old bicycle spokes. Billy Bennington (1900–1986), a player from Norfolk in England, used cane hammers bound with wool. The hammered dulcimer was"
"cannons prior to modern tolerancing, where iron cannonballs would otherwise stick in the barrel. It is still widely used today for springs, bearings, bushings, automobile transmission pilot bearings, and similar fittings, and is particularly common in the bearings of small electric motors. Phosphor bronze is particularly suited to precision-grade bearings and springs. It is also used in guitar and piano strings. Unlike steel, bronze struck against a hard surface will not generate sparks, so it (along with beryllium copper) is used to make hammers, mallets, wrenches and other durable tools to be used in explosive atmospheres or in the presence"
"Nick Manoloff invented the Nick Manoloff Tone Bar. He was granted a patent (#2073331) on March 9, 1937. The tone bar or steel was made of the revolutionary synthetic material known as bakelite. Bakelite (/ˈbeɪkəlaɪt/ BAY-kə-lyt, sometimes spelled Baekelite[3]), or polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, is an early plastic. It is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from an elimination reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. It was developed by Belgian-born chemist Leo Baekeland in New York in 1907. These slides were 2.75"" in length, 0.75"" in diameter, round on the tip end and flat on the other with inscription, ""Nick Manoloff Pat. 2076331."" They"
"the Pianoette, the Pianolin, and the Tremoloa. Marxophones were billed as easy to play, and sold on time-purchase plans by door-to-door salesmen, and through mail-order companies like Sears-Roebuck. Because the hammers are made of white lead, the instrument sheds small amounts of lead powder. Musicians who actively use this instrument have adopted the practice of coating the hammers in Epoxy glue, which does not affect the sound but stops the wearing away of the hammers (and prevents the poisoning of children, cats and other small creatures). In addition to being limited to the keys of C major and A minor"
"notably more luminous image with a high contrast ratio. Because of its explosive nature, not all applications of nitrocellulose were successful. In 1869, with elephants having been poached to near extinction, the billiards industry offered a US$10,000 prize to whomever came up with the best replacement for ivory billiard balls. John Wesley Hyatt created the winning replacement, which he created with a new material he invented called camphored nitrocellulose—the first thermoplastic, better known as celluloid. The invention enjoyed a brief popularity, but the Hyatt balls were extremely flammable, and sometimes portions of the outer shell would explode upon impact. An"
"from their instruments would likely have been dwarfed by lead from other sources, such as the lead-content paint used to mark visual identification of the bowls to the players. Historical replicas by Eisch use so-called ""White Crystal"" developed in the 18th c. replacing the lead with a higher potash content; many modern newly invented devices, such as those made by Finkenbeiner, are made from so-called Quartz ""pure silica glass"" - a glass formulation developed in the early 20th c. for scientific purposes. The somewhat disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive"
"major application of nitrates is as oxidizing agents, most notably in explosives where the rapid oxidation of carbon compounds liberates large volumes of gases (see gunpowder for an example). Sodium nitrate is used to remove air bubbles from molten glass and some ceramics. Mixtures of the molten salt are used to harden some metals. Explosives and table tennis balls are made from celluloid. In the early 20th century, most motion picture film was made of nitrocellulose, but the intense flammability of the film led to it being replaced with ""safety film"" by the mid-20th-century. Although nitrites are the nitrogen compound"
"were not widely accepted, and were discontinued. The numerous parts of a piano action are generally made from hardwood, such as maple, beech, and hornbeam, however, since World War II, makers have also incorporated plastics. Early plastics used in some pianos in the late 1940s and 1950s, proved disastrous when they lost strength after a few decades of use. Beginning in 1961, the New York branch of the Steinway firm incorporated Teflon, a synthetic material developed by DuPont, for some parts of its Permafree grand action in place of cloth bushings, but abandoned the experiment in 1982 due to excessive"
"Gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply jelly, is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or gun cotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and saltpetre (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate). It was invented in 1875 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, who also invented dynamite. Unlike dynamite, gelignite does not suffer from the dangerous problem of ""sweating"", the leaking of unstable nitroglycerine from the solid matrix. Its composition makes it easily moldable and safe to handle without protection, as long as it is not near anything capable of"
"Rhinestone A rhinestone, paste or diamante is a diamond simulant originally made from rock crystal but since the 19th century from crystal glass or polymers such as acrylic. Originally, rhinestones were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine, hence the name, although some were also found in areas like the Alps, but today the name ""rhinestone"" applies only to varieties of lead glass known as crystal glass. The availability was greatly increased in the 18th century when the Alsatian jeweller Georg Friedrich Strass had the idea to imitate diamonds by coating the lower side of lead glass with metal powder."
"since ivory-yielding species are now endangered and protected by treaty, or are illegal in some countries, makers use plastics almost exclusively. Also, ivory tends to chip more easily than plastic. Legal ivory can still be obtained in limited quantities. The Yamaha firm invented a plastic called ""Ivorite"" that they claim mimics the look and feel of ivory. It has since been imitated by other makers. Almost every modern piano has 52 white keys and 36 black keys for a total of 88 keys (seven octaves plus a minor third, from A to C). Many older pianos only have 85 keys"
"the appeal of the game. After a transitional period where only the better players would use cues, the cue came to be the first choice of equipment. The demand for tables and other equipment was initially met in Europe by John Thurston and other furniture makers of the era. The early balls were made from wood and clay, but the rich preferred to use ivory. Early billiard games involved various pieces of additional equipment, including the ""arch"" (related to the croquet hoop), ""port"" (a different hoop) and ""king"" (a pin or skittle near the arch) in the 1770s, but other"
"least the Roman era. More recent trade began when a clay was needed to construct tobacco pipes in the 16th and 17th century. In 1771 Josiah Wedgwood signed a contract for 1400 tons a year of ball clay with Thomas Hyde of Purbeck, enabling him to fire thinner-walled ceramics. Ball clay Ball clays are kaolinitic sedimentary clays that commonly consist of 20–80% kaolinite, 10–25% mica, 6–65% quartz. Localized seams in the same deposit have variations in composition, including the quantity of the major minerals, accessory minerals and carbonaceous materials such as lignite. They are fine-grained and plastic in nature, and,"
"Pearloid Pearloid is a plastic that is intended to resemble mother of pearl. It is commonly used in making musical instruments, especially for pickguards, electric guitars, and accordions. Pearloid is produced by swirling together chunks of celluloid in a solvent, then curing. It is sliced and bonded to other materials such as wood, to give the mother of pearl effect. Pearloid is used in any context where genuine mother of pearl or abalone might be used, as it is much cheaper and doesn't deplete the supply of the natural material. Gibson uses it as a substitute for the mother of"
"plugs, switches and parts for electrical irons, as well as in the area of inexpensive board and tabletop games produced in China, Hong Kong and India. Items such as billiard balls, dominoes and pieces for board games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon are constructed of Bakelite for its look, durability, fine polish, weight, and sound. Common dice are sometimes made of Bakelite for weight and sound, but the majority are made of a thermoplastic polymer such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). Bakelite continues to be used for wire insulation, brake pads and related automotive components, and industrial electrical-related applications."
"Silex Piano The Silex Piano is a musical instrument of the Lithophone family. It was created by Honoré Baudre, circa 1885 and was described in several contemporary publications. According to Cassell's Family Magazine Illustrated, 1885: ""It has long been known that certain flintstones emit a musical note when struck with other flints; and M. Baudre, a French musician, has constructed a piano on this principle. The flints are chosen according to their pitch when struck, and suspended horizontally by their two ends in a row like the keys of a Piano. An elegant metal framework supports the stones, and wires"
"of mostly naïve art practised by whalers and sailors on sperm whale teeth and other marine ivory, mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ivory was used for the balls for table ball games such as billiards and snooker until the late 19th century, even as they games became far more widely played. Other uses were for the white keys of keyboard instruments and the handles of cutlery, sometimes elaborately carved. Ivory is a very suitable material for the intricate geometrical patterns of Islamic art, and has been much used for boxes, inlays in wood and other purposes. From 750-1258"
"has in recent years created an action out of an ABS styran/carbon composite. There are no independent reviews of this method. The Wessel, Nickel and Gross company makes custom actions for grand pianos (and uprights) that are also epoxy carbon fiber. Unlike Kawai, WNG uses composite material for the hammer shank also. The Stuart and Sons piano company of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia makes a piano in which there are bridge agraffes. Agraffes are a kind of sturdy metal clip that hold the strings in place. They were invented in 1808 by the piano pioneer Sébastien Érard and have"